As the political ground under Donald Trump’s feet is now collapsing like a soggy taco bowl, calculating Republicans are feigning morality in withdrawing their support of him and calling for him to quit the Presidential race.

What is clear is that what they object to most about Trump as of now is that he could cause the GOP to lose the White House and down ballot races. This isn’t genuinely about morality or principle, it’s about party first, everything else second.

As long as Trump was doing well in the polls, these Republican hypocrites were just fine about looking the other way when he espoused racism, religious bigotry, nuclear proliferation and wars, brown-nosing Vladimir Putin and the Alt Right, attacking our military and gold star families and even trying to savage a woman who is a private citizen, for gaining 15 pounds.

Donald Trump has been an ugly reflection of the worst of the white male American psyche and as he’s promoted hate (and even encouraged violence against protesters at his rallies), all of these “principled” Republicans supported him and proclaimed they would vote for him. What have we really learned about Trump because of this new tape that we didn’t already know to one degree or another? What really has changed since yesterday?

Only his electability.

Now, when he has pretty much assured his loss in November, Republicans exhibit their penchant for self-flattering dishonesty, beating their chests and fanning their brows, claiming that because Trump is a near-certain loser…er…says such offensive things about women, they can’t “in good conscience” support him anymore and in fact, demand he quit so a candidate that is more competitive…er…more moral, could run instead.

The GOP became wholly unprincipled once Trump became their nominee and are only affirming that with this feigned outrage. They’re only concerned about winning their own re-elections and having a better shot at winning the White House. As we’ve come to learn, the GOP has been hollowed out for some time, it is devoid of any vision, principles or causes that would benefit Americans, they only strive to win elections to have greater power and to enrich the already-rich who finance their campaigns.

It is no surprise that a number in the Repub establishment right now are calling and pressing for Trump to quit the race. But is that viable? Would it provide Repubs with a better shot at winning the White House and down ballot races?

In a simple two letter answer…no.

Progressives, Indies and Democrats, you don’t need to fear Trump being replaced as the GOP candidate for the following reasons.

TRUMP WILL NEVER QUIT THE RACE – If we’ve all learned anything about Donald Trump, it is that his ego is obese. He talks about himself in the 3rd person, he proclaims himself to be smarter than generals, scientists and most of mankind. He never admits he’s ever made a mistake…except in this one isolated case when his world is crashing down around him and even then, he did so by stiffly reading an apology written by someone else from a teleprompter that turned out to be the preface of a personal attack on Hillary and Bill Clinton. This man’s life is all about being the center of attention and being a “winner”. Such a narcissist who sustains his existence by people paying attention to him would never willingly walk out of the spotlight…and agree to have a lasting legacy of an historic loser and quitter. And keep in mind, he can’t be removed by the GOP, the only way he can be replaced is if he voluntarily quits. But what’s in it for Trump? And that’s the operable question, he only does things that will benefit himself and quitting would be an act of self-sacrifice…something he has no experience or history of doing. He doesn’t care about the GOP’s future nor would he put it above being disgraced, everything is and has always been about elevating himself. And in his bubble, he has plenty of deranged aides and followers who are telling him every ridiculous fantasy he wants to hear, about how this will blow over and he’ll beat all the naysayers to become President. Trump will not quit because he has absolutely nothing to gain from it and would look like a loser. When your “empire” is all about being a winner, it’s not even conceivable to volunteer to become an instant and yuuge loser.

IF TRUMP WALKS, SO DOES THE GOP BASE – Just for entertainment purposes, let’s propose that Donald Trump is visited by Jiminy Cricket and is convinced to implant a conscience in himself. Let’s fantasize that this allows Trump to listen to his GOP critics and agree to quit the race to put the needs of the many above the needs of the one (Spock is dying again just by being associated with Trump). So Trump walks away from the Repub nom…what happens next? Well, we can have some fun imagining the crapfest as Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Mike Pence and probably others get into a catfight over who should be Trump’s replacement. The way it works, the GOP would have to convene a conference to choose a replacement for Trump and that would be a real life Thunderdome (“One Trump exit, many douches enter!”). Then what would happen next? A VP would have to be chosen. Then they’re done, right? In fact, maybe they’d have a big advantage now over Hillary because they’d have a fresh, unbloodied candidate with better positives than Hillary or the departed Trump! The new Repub candidate would be sure to get lots of votes now…but from who? The bulk of the GOP base are part of the personality cult of Donald Trump, the outsider. They have only spite for the Republican establishment and if the Repub establishment pushes their hero out of the candidacy, does anyone really think they’ll just embrace his replacement like a substitute Trumpy bear? Really? Or do you think that they will be more outraged than ever that their candidate was destroyed by a rigged system? Trump followers, the majority of the GOP will not accept Pence, Cruz or Kasich as an alternative to Trump. They will be much more likely not to vote for any Republicans, many will simply not vote. One could suggest that the GOP could lose by an even bigger margin if they tried to kick Trump out and bring in anyone else (“Hello, Romney residence, this is Mitt speaking. Oh, I answered so fast because I was sitting by the phone, why do you ask?”).

BALLOTS ARE ALREADY PRINTED – Staying with the far fetched wet dream of establishment Repubs that they could convince Trump to quit and could quickly and easily replace him with one of their own, there’s one big problem with being able to vote for the new candidate. Their name needs to be on the ballot. Most if not all states have already printed up their ballots and over 20% of voters are able to early vote right now. Their ballots list Trump as the GOP nominee. People are voting for specific candidates to become President, not a party to select a President so the name of a candidate must be on the ballot and must be the one people select. Of course, those who have already voted or vote between now and the imaginary time when the GOP finishes replacing Trump, can’t change their vote. Those are votes solely for Trump so any new GOP candidate loses all those votes. The other thing is that states are not going suspend early voting to substitute revised ballots nor will they be willing to incur the enormous expense of trashing all of their remaining ballots and printing up and distributing a brand new batch of ballots just because the GOP freaked out that their candidate doesn’t have a prayer of winning. Even if the Kochs or some other billionaire idiots on the right agreed to cover all the costs of all states (at least the states they think they could win) to reprint ballots, the logistics are very complex and difficult. And who says any states would want to go through such madness anyway, rushing to monkey around with their ballots and risk missing the deadlines or ending up with an election day disaster because of confusion? If you thought hanging chads were crazy, imagine states counting ballots that are different, with different Republican candidate names on them or even duplicated ballots because of the madness to replace existing ones.

DO REPUBLICANS THINK SUCH A DESPERATE MOVE IS WORTH THE RISK? – Repubs may have to accept at this point that they’re going to lose the White House. But by monkeying with their party to replace their Presidential nominee, wouldn’t they be concerned that they could make a bad situation worse? Repubs have been doing pretty well in general with their Congressional candidates, might they not consider that giving up on the Presidency but keeping the party stable to help re-elect their candidates might be more prudent than rolling the dice and seeing if replacing Trump will end up being good or disastrous? They are well aware of the loyalty and commitment their base has to Trump, would they really take all that for granted and have no concerns that they could jeopardize their control of The Senate and House by upsetting Trump followers? As proposed in item 2 above, it is not unlikely that the GOP could hemorrhage voters if Trump is replaced, affirming by doing so that the GOP establishment won’t allow an “outsider” to become President. They are called conservatives and one might suggest that conservatives rarely are willing to risk so much on a gamble…and considering Trump failed at running casinos, maybe making a longshot wager is a bad bet.

In the end, this sure looks like a case of Republicans having either a bad scenario or a worse scenario. It doesn’t appear that the GOP has any way to win the White House now but they sure can make some choices that cause them to lose the election in an even bigger landslide.

Live by the Trump, die by the Trump. They had the chance all along the way to prevent this from happening but they would have had to destroy the policy of exploiting the hatred and prejudices in less educated voters that they’ve relied on to win elections for decades. Trump reflects the fatally flawed strategy of a nihilist party and the problem with standing for nothing but the destruction of everything the other party supports.

Revising the Oppenheimer quote, the radioactive candidate named Trump should reply to all the Republicans demanding him to quit, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of the GOP.“

another great post, I still have to bang my head against the wall every time I read some ‘defender’ of this man. Is this what the GOP has devolved into?? My mother never accepted my excuse that ‘Billy did it too’ but Thumpers sycophants do!! Rudi just this AM on MTP equated a speech as equal to sexual assault of women!! Trump should be required to register as a sexual predator, he has admitted on tape to acts of assault on women , now I know without those women stepping forward there is no actual case, but we know!!

I think most Americans will also reject the Trump scheme to justify his bragging of sexual assaults by comparing his actions to Bill Clinton and only see him as more disgusting and view Hillary as more sympathetic.

I actually hope Hillary nails him on the sexism of trying to smear a woman for what’s alleged against her husband. What male candidate has ever been smeared for what his wife may have done on her own?

So many opportunities for Hillary to turn Trump’s attacks into evidence of his misogyny, I think she’ll be well prepared for that.

the ‘HOVERING HULK’ lost big time last night, babbling on and on, saying nothing, can anyone imagine this fool negotiating with the leaders of China, who have a couple of thousand years worth of diplomacy under their belts, or even with the dictator of Russia, this man or better yet, this stunted adolescent, who feels it is his right to cop a feel at a whim, regardless of any woman’s rights, can never be allowed anywhere near the White House.

Trump’s supporters have the brownshirt mentality, they will march behind The Fuhrer even if he’s leading them to attack entire races and religions, he is the personification of their anger at the world changing to a more multicultural and tolerant society that doesn’t elevate people because they have white skin and claim to be Christians.

How they will react to Trump’s big defeat will be very interesting but they are not going to become an armed insurrection, they’re mostly uneducated older white people who are emotionally insecure and scared. There is no actual bravery there. But there may be an audience for The Trump News Channel.

Wonderful article, AdLib. The extinction of the gop is almost complete and trump is giving it the final push into obscurity. They fell head first into the trap.

No, this egoistic excuse for a human being would never quit, not after he has tasted the admiration and attention he has longed for all of his miserable existence. The gop are crazy to think that they can replace him at this late date and with whom? He won the nomination out of 17 other useless, weak and truly awful candidates.

When he loses in November, ironically he will have done America a favour. He singlehandedly pronounced a death sentence on the party of greed, hypocrisy and destruction. Heil trump!!

Kalima, it seems like reality has finally caught up with the Presidential campaign…with a vengeance. Most reasonable people looked at the Trump phenomenon as surreal and ridiculous. He is so plainly incompetent, racist, misogynist, thin-skinned and narcissistic, so unpresidential by any stretch of the imagination, that he couldn’t be taken seriously.

I think what’s happened is that the disappointingly disengaged “swing voters” who don’t pay attention to the race until the Fall have finally joined in and after being entertained by the outrageousness of Trump for the past year, really consider what he’d be like as President and reject him.

Add that to the incredible tape of Trump happily bragging about sexually assaulting women after attacking a woman for gaining weight and you have a fait accompli.

I will stay cool until after the debate but it sure feels like not only is it all over for Trump but it may be over for the Repub domination of Congress.

Point one::::: all the GOP politician backers now have a moral problem with women backing trump and They are just as bad in many cases.

Point two:: The GOP is now looking at losing the senate and possible 60 dem senators!! The house probably will get close.

Can they repair the party in time. i think your correct they can not!

OK Now the libs are fighting out sanders principles calling him a sell out.

Well his platform is very very close to Hillary’s just minor differences. IN fact Adlib nothing i mean nothing of Sanders platform is new not one thing. Socialism has been around more then 200 yrs! So really Hillary is slightly left of sanders.

OK Sanders if the ONLY dem to every run on taxing the mid and low income families and their businesses !! SO GOP move 1

Next Sanders universal h/care great in concept you can not pay for it though. It failed in his home state. Here is how it is the biggest gift to large corporations and big pharma they both pay the lion share of h/care costs , they provide the coverage. Now all of that is deductible in part so they really pay lower taxes to start.
OK Now Sanders uses Medicare and it only pays 80 % of the costs. So you still need private insurance. Lets say they have solved that problem.
Now here is what happens for the big Corps example.
They stop paying h/care / premiums.
My corp i pay a little and they pay 500 $ Plus every
month. OK that is 6000 a yr x 50 k employees some
will not be illegible for pension reason.
If SINGLE PAYER passes MY CORP get 300 million Dollar pure
profit EACH YR.
Now there are about 1000 corps of the same size of more!!
IF PASSED it just handed them 300 billion Dollars a yr plus
all the other corps and big businesses! That is Half the military budget!
Then in 10 yrs 4 TRILLION DOLLARS OF PURE PROFIT to those corps!

IN other words you transfer paying Big Pharma to the tax payer!!

Again the concept is correct but another way must be found to control costs without taxing we the people to do it

OK i do not like Sander he lied all the time on NO big donors and no super pacs. I will leave out the rest of his bad stuff

If Sanders would have won i vote for him NO QUESTION NOT A SECOND THOUGHT! I do not cry foul and ask for any recounts and it is impossible to rig the electronic ballets because you can not get a program on any voting machines! If there are some they would be got immediately. Believe me i have written secure programs to keep people out.

SO now Warren ( my candidate who did not run ) Obama and even Sanders himself backs Hillary which is the right thing to do!!

SO if you believe in Sanders stuff you DO NOT FOR ANY REASON VOTE 3rd party. DO not throw away his GOOD stuff . He is batter off in the senate writing bills for presidents do not wrote bills . The senate and house does

Jill stein::::: OK she is a reject republican and does not believe in the Green party platform at all. She is in it for the MONEY. SHe has never held any position other then local stuff and has no qualifications to be president. SO every vote for her is a vote for trump!!

OK THe next 3 supreme court appoints will be made in the next 4 to 8 yrs. SO Hillary needs to a point them.
Next if you do not like Citizens united you better vote Hillary.

If you are in the military or a veteran they will lose all kinds of benefits so they need to vote Hillary.

THe FINE LGBTQ community needs to vote Dem also or lose all kinds of rights

Next immigration for a fair one again Hillary is the one who will try to see it thru!!

SS needs protecting if the GOP wins you may see it go by the waste side!!

Opening up the CEO compensation process.
Hillary Clinton introduced legislation to
provide shareholders a vote on executive compensation,
especially on benefits packages for executives when
companies are merged or bought out, so-called
“golden parachutes.” The Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law
included a similar “say on pay” provision.
Hillary’s bill also would have created a three year
look-back period (also known as a “claw-back” policy)
within which the SEC could require CEOs and CFOs to repay
bonuses, profits or other compensation if they were found
to have overseen or been complicit in corporate misconduct
or illicit activity. While the Dodd-Frank Wall Street
reform law includes claw-back provisions,
the SEC rule-making process is ongoing.

Newsweek ranked her as the 13th most powerful person on the planet, and the most powerful American woman, in its “Global Elite” for 2009.[28]
In 2009, Clinton received the Global Trailblazer award from Vital Voices Global Partnership, for “her passionate commitment to promoting women’s rights and securing justice for all people around the world.”[29]
On March 27, 2009, Clinton received the Margaret Sanger Award from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America,[30] which the organization says “recognize[s] leadership, excellence, and outstanding contributions to the reproductive health and rights movement.”
On May 13, 2009, Clinton received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from New York University and spoke at their 177th commencement at new Yankee Stadium.[31][32]
On May 18, 2009, Clinton received Barnard College’s highest award, the Barnard Medal of Distinction, as she spoke at their commencement.[33]
On May 25, 2009, Clinton received an honorary Doctor of Law degree from Yale University, from whose law school she had graduated three dozen years earlier.[34]
Also on May 25, 2009, Clinton received an award from the National Coordinated Effort of Hellenes, for “unprecedented steps taken in the right direction on Hellenic and Orthodox issues”.[35]
During 2009, Clinton received the Freedom Medal, part of the Four Freedoms Awards from the Roosevelt Institute.[36]
On October 5, 2010, Secretary Clinton was given the George McGovern Leadership Award by the World Food Programme, for “her commitment and visionary approach to ending global hunger.”[37]
On April 15, 2011, Clinton received the Walther-Rathenau-Preis in Berlin “for outstanding contributions to international understanding and cooperation”.[38]
On June 2, 2011, Secretary Clinton was given the George C. Marshall Foundation Award for a career of distinguished public service, and in particular, “for her dignity and integrity of character, for her devotion to creating and perpetuating free and democratic institutions, and for promoting appropriate economic development that will allow them to flourish.”[39]
In 2012, she was chosen as one of Barbara Walters’ 10 Most Fascinating People of the year.[40]
In March 2012, Arkansas’ largest airport, in Little Rock, was renamed to Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field.[41]
In April 2012, Clinton received a Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service.[42]
On May 24, 2012, Clinton was given the Champions for Change Award for Leadership by the International Center for Research on Women, “in recognition of her long-standing dedication to empowering women and girls worldwide and ensuring their human rights.”[43]
In December 2012, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy’s annual Saban Forum honored Clinton with a keynote speech introduced by an eight-minute video that featured several foreign leaders and considerable praise from Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu, Tzipi Livni, Shimon Peres, and Ehud Barak.[44]
In Belfast on December 8, 2012, Clinton was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by The Worldwide Ireland Funds, in recognition of her efforts for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland during her time as First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State.[45]
On January 15, 2013, Clinton was awarded the Philippine Legion of Honor.[46]

————--
Clinton was named by Americans in Gallup’s most admired man and woman poll as the woman around the world they most admired in 1993–94, 1997–2000, and 2002–15.[64] The win in 2015 was her fourteenth in a row and twentieth overall.[64][65] She has held the top spot in the poll longer than any other woman or man in Gallup’s history of asking the most admired question.[65]
Clinton has been ranked on their list of the world’s most powerful people by Forbes magazine. She was listed as 5th most powerful in 2004,[66] 26th in 2005,[67] 18th in 2006,[68] 28th in 2008,[69] 36th in 2009,[70] 2nd in 2011,[71] 2nd in 2012,[72] 5th in 2013,[73] 6th in 2014, and 58th in 2015.[74][75]
Clinton has been named ten times in Time magazine’s Time 100 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.[76][77][78] Years this happened were 2004 (as part of The Clintons),[79] 2006,[80] 2007,[81] 2008,[82] 2009,[83] 2011,[84] 2012,[85] 2014,[76] 2015,[77] and 2016.[78] In addition, in November 2010, Time named Clinton one of the 25 most powerful women of the past century.[86]
Clinton has been named three times as Barbara Walters’ Most Fascinating Person of the year (in 1993, 2003, and 2013).[87]

Hillary
I am a proud democrat. i am left wing and proud of it.

I support a woman’s right to choose. if that makes me a baby killer to some so be it , but I really would rather them call me an egg killer, because that is the true term, I just do not believe in forcing a female to incubate an egg that was fertilized by accident. I believe in allowing planned families. .

I support fair taxation, I don’t want my bank broke paying taxes or anyone else’s. However, what I pay at 40 cents of my income for every dollar I earn comes up to around 18,000 while 40 cents of what very high income earns comes up to a few million or more, and I can not make up the difference for them if they pay less on the dollar than I do, because that is just not enough revenue to keep cities, states, and our country functioning the way we all need it to. So tax according to percent of income not dollar amount. We are supposed to take care of our poor not force those who don’t have any money to pay taxes and/or just die.

I support gay marriage and civil rights , because I believe every human should have equal rights . I believe God will say you were fair to all of my children, so I will be fair to you. We are supposed to allow him to judge not try to rule by law what we think he would want..

I support transitioning from our dependence on oil and anything that harms our environment to better and safer ways as quickly as we can without causing too much harm due to job loss. I believe we need to do this in ways that new and better jobs can replace the old and anything we can do to speed up the process needs everyone’s support.

I support a pathway to citizenship for Americans that do not have legal docs , There is verse in the bible that struck a chord in my heart and has always stayed with me where it states to welcome the stranger coming into your land the same as if the stranger was of your own loved family member..

I support peace always , but I also accept that there are times when we have to defend ourselves against people that do not want peace. But all efforts to try for peace should be tried first.

I believe that tax supported social programs are essential that private charity will never be sufficient to meet need, But I am proud and grateful for all private charities where they do what they can.

I want to reduce the need for assistance, but I want to do that with support for a living wage. because if people are able to work they need to be able to support themselves with what they earn and that will do more to encourage work ethics than forced need will ever do .

I honor and respect our wealthy that give back and want there to be more and more just like them, I resent the wealthy that just operate on greed. And for those that will help but want to pick and choose who they will or won’t help while I respect what they are willing to do, I disagree with them picking and choosing.

We need to expand medicaid in every state now so that everyone that works low wages and/or not able to work can have life saving healthcare.

And last of all I support Hillary Clinton to be the next President of the United States of America.

As for Bernie supporters who aren’t supporting Hillary yet, I’d just propose that it’s easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar. Attacking them and Bernie only affirms to Bernie or Busters that they are viewed with distaste by Hillary and her supporters and will only push them away.

Bernie’s health care plan was single payer, that’s what the tax increases would have paid for and studies showed that it would have actually resulted in saving Americans $5,000 a year from what they pay now in taxes and healthcare.

That said, I think the focus for Hillary should be on connecting with and welcoming holdouts who supported Bernie to voting for her by stressing the similarities of her policies with Bernie’s.

As for the GOP, we’re just hours away from the debate and if Trump comes out as maniacal as many predict he will, this could set up the biggest landslide for Hillary and Dems since Goldwater lost…maybe bigger.

I don’t think there’s any way Trump can turn things around to have a close shot at winning, the real question is whether his decline will sweep Dems into control of The Senate…and maybe even the House too.

Glad to be Back Adlib !! I have been reading on the site but an illness and Me starting to write new music in another direction for me takes up most of my time.

OH i agree Sanders fans are hard to sway and all i did was point out Hillary>s good points and what will happen if she loses.

If one believes in EVERY VOTE COUNTS! you do not vote 3rd party! I also pointed out He has a lot of good things that his disgruntled fans Just throw away!

Point one I disagree his version of h/care as i pointed out in math it is pure profit to 4 trillion in ten yrs!I am not sure this is worth that profit margin. H.care can be controlled by tighter control of drugs and medical procedures and medical instrument and supplies Then the gov buys up hospitals Like in europe to further control medical costs!
This could be almost as good maybe better then ONE PAYER system !

Ya you do not pay the 5 K to the h/care provider, A very good thing but you do pay extra taxes and will for yrs ! Remember Medicare as it sits ONLY PAYS 80 % So One still will need a private insurance to make up that 20 %

So that is where we disagree but that may be the only one and no one agree with others to each and every point!